


we’re somethin’ strange (in your neighborhood)

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Series: The Lovers Grimm [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Anal Sex, Cousin Incest, Crossover, F/M, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Ghosts, M/M, Multi, Succubi & Incubi, Threesome - M/M/M, ghost hunting roadtrips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:12:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So, you really aren't a child predator, huh?" Roxas pants, brushing sweat off his brow. The smile that Axel flashes him is sharper than usual, jagged teeth gleaming white against the red of his lips. "You're all children to me," he purrs, leaning down to pick a rock off the ground and bashing the nearest zombie in the head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we’re somethin’ strange (in your neighborhood)

**Author's Note:**

> Dark Month 2012, Day 30. The long-awaited sequel to The Lovers Grimm is here! And... I failed at getting it all out at once. Since it was due today and has at the very least another ten thousand words before it wants to be done, I am going to post a chapter-fic for the first time since 2005. Yes, you heard me, 2005. The next couple of chapters will come out when they're ready to, but until then, enjoy!

**_You have (1) unheard message. First unheard message from SORA on October tenth, 2008 at 8:13am._**  
  
_*beep*_  
  
Roxas! Mom told me to call you to see how the moving’s going! Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her your address, but still! You should at least call her before she blows up my phone since apparently you DIDN’T GIVE HER YOUR NEW NUMBER! Anyway, I miss you! College life is boring without my little brother to harass. Oh! And me, Riku, and Kairi are gonna come visit in the next few weeks, so make sure you tell your crazy new roommate to hide his weed! See ya soon!  
  
_*beep*_  
  
**_End of new messages. To check old messages, press one. To change your personal options, press two. To disconnect, press star._**  
  
.  
  
Roxas' life is hardly a fairytale. He's just a kid in some hob-knob town in the middle of nowhere, struggling to get through his last year of high school so he can just get the fuck out. He isn't a knight in shining armor—he's no golden boy jock, pride of the school, yadda yadda yadda. But then, he's not sure that he would really want that life anyway. He isn't the damsel in distress, just waiting for his prince to sweep him off his feet.  
  
His life is just that—his life. Normal and boring, complete with text books and loud parents—a brother that is far more sociable than he is and a handful of friends who wouldn't miss him if he was gone. He doesn't do parties and he doesn't go to football games.  
  
Roxas's life is boring.  
  
He's just human.  
  
He graduates with honors. He's smart, but not smart enough to be valedictorian. He gives no speeches and the only member of his family that is present is his twin brother; but only because he's sitting right next to him, waiting for his diploma along with the rest of their class.  
  
He loves his brother, don't get him wrong. Sora's amazing, even if he is a little bit ditzy and just ever so slightly too optimistic. He's one of those kids who doesn't believe that there's anything wrong with the world, like there's some veil in front of his eyes obscuring its horrors. It's both a good thing and a bad thing, because one of these days, that veil is going to fall, and Roxas doesn't want to see his brother's face when he finally realizes that life isn't all raindrops and roses all the time.  
  
He goes to a college somewhere in California, where the sun beats down on his shoulders and the Pacific Ocean is in his peripherals near constantly. He likes it.  
  
His roommate introduces him to weed and the little brunette in his physics class starts eating lunch with him.  
  
Roxas does his homework sprawled in the warm grass of the Oval, aces most of his tests, and eats a lot of Nutella on toast.  
  
He's happy, but his life is still damn boring.  
  
Everything changes at the end of Winter quarter, the night that he follows Demyx to a bar a few blocks off campus.  
  
.  
  
He doesn't remember much of the night. It's a blur of noise and laughter in his mind, so it doesn't surprise him much when he wakes up with a skinny redhead sprawled out across his stomach, pale ass bare to the world.  
  
Well, bare to the rest of Roxas's dorm room, which is currently empty.  
  
He groans when the sun slanting through the crooked blinds incite a searing headache. He nudges the redhead with his elbow, smacking his lips and grimacing at the sour taste in his mouth. "Look dude, you gotta go," he sighs, jostling the guy some more when he just curls in tighter, arms clenching around Roxas's waist.  
  
The guy slants an eye open. "Don't wanna."  
  
"Yeah well, you gotta. I'm late enough for class as it is."  
  
The redhead yawns, propping himself upright with an elbow to Roxas's sternum. Roxas grunts at the sharp jolt of pain and glares, pushing him away. The guy stretches a little, arms over his head and everything. He gives Roxas an offended look. "It's Saturday, kiddo. Try again."  
  
Well, fuck.  
  
"Okay, whatever, I tried being polite. I'm sure we had a great night, but I don't remember jack shit. So even if I knew your name fourteen hours ago, I sure don't now. So find your clothes and get the hell out of my dorm."  
  
The guy smiles. "Axel."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
The smile widens into a grin. "My name," he says, leaning back into Roxas's space. "It's Axel."  
  
Roxas rolls his eyes. "Fantastic, I'll write it down somewhere. Make sure I memorize it. Now get out."  
  
Axel shrugs and rolls to his feet gracefully, selecting clothes from the floor seemingly at random and shrugging them on. When he's dressed, he raises an eyebrow at Roxas. The fucker has the gall to look amused. "Well," Axel says. "I had a wonderful night. Don't suppose I could see you again?"  
  
Roxas growls and curls himself around a pillow. "Just go away before I throw up on you."  
  
The guy is laughing when he finally shuts the door.  
  
.  
  
It never really occurs to Roxas to wonder why he was just so damn worn out—why the hangover was that bad. He's a college kid, and even if he's still not too used to one-night-stands or all night parties, he figures that every hangover feels like hell is knocking against the inside of his skull.  
  
He chalks the ache in his bones up to either really bad or really good sex, and spends the day sipping orange juice in bed and marathoning Buffy.  
  
.  
  
After that, Roxas starts seeing Axel all over town. Mostly bars, when he's playing designated driver, but he sees him in the library a few times as well. The bar meetings are predictable. Every night Roxas watches Axel go home with someone different—a busty brunette one night and a burly black guy the next.  
  
He doesn't seem picky, so Roxas doesn't let himself feel bad about kicking the guy out.  
  
The library visits are weirder. From what Roxas can tell, Axel isn't in college, but he spends hours on end in various aisles, books stacked at his side.  
  
When the curiosity gets to be too much, Roxas leaves his study table and crosses to Axel's latest little nook.  
  
"Why are you here all the time?" he demands, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
Axel looks up from his book and grins. "Roxas, was it?"  
  
He doesn't let himself think about the fact that even with dozens of partners, Axel still remembers his name. "Are you a child predator or something?" he asks.  
  
Axel rolls his eyes. "I don't look that old, do I?"  
  
"Not the point."  
  
"No, Roxas, I am not a child predator. Nor are you a child."  
  
"If you aren't in college, why the hell are you here all the time? Are college kids easy prey or something? Come to town for the weather, stay for the ass?"  
  
It might be a trick of the light, but in that moment, Axel's eyes seem to gleam. His lips curve slowly upwards into an eerie smile. He hums in the back of his throat, leaning forward. "Easy prey, hmm? I suppose it's something like that."  
  
.  
  
He starts avoiding Axel after that. If he sees him in a bar, he turns right around again. In the library? There are other libraries.  
  
Fate is funny though, because the moment he lets his guard down and lets Demyx drag him out again, he wakes up the next day to red hair tickling his nose.  
  
"You have got to be fucking kidding me."  
  
.  
  
The thing with the zombies happens a few days later, and it isn't until Axel is dragging him out of the graveyard that it occurs to Roxas to maybe be a little bit concerned.  
  
"Get your ass moving, Roxas," Axel snarls, punching the zombie that had been about to tear through Roxas's shoulder right in the face.  
  
This is his life now. He knows someone that punches zombies in the face. That was a thing that happened.  
  
"So, you really aren't a child predator, huh?" Roxas pants, brushing sweat off his brow.  
  
The smile that Axel flashes him is sharper than usual, sharp teeth gleaming white against the red of his lips. "You're all children to me," he purrs, leaning down to pick a rock off the ground and bashing the nearest zombie in the head.  
  
If Roxas was a different person, he might gasp in horror. As it stands, redhead with fangs that he's slept with on two different occasions rates lower than zombies on the weirdness scale.  
  
"You aren't—"  
  
"Human?" Axel scoffs. "I am not. Now get out of here, before I let these things eat you."  
  
Roxas isn't a running type of guy.  
  
Besides, he wants to watch the show.  
  
.  
  
"An incubus?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"Guess that explains the co-eds."  
  
.  
  
Roxas graduates college and moves in with a demon.  
  
His life isn't boring anymore, at least.  
  
.  
  
Meeting Reno is a lot like getting stuck in the middle of a firefight, which is to say that it involves a lot of pain and a whole lot of panic.  
  
He and Axel don't take jobs all that often—for the most part they just keep it simple. Just because Axel is an incubus doesn't mean their lives have to be all fire and brimstone all the time. For the most part, they just act like two twenty-something kids. They share an apartment on the outskirts of the city, they get take-out often because Roxas can't really cook and Axel is usually too tired to do so, and generally stick to watching B-list horror movies and reading on the sofa.  
  
The sex is fantastic, though a week into their relationship Roxas told Axel in no uncertain terms that he wasn't allowed to feed on Roxas every single time they messed around. By the end of that week, Roxas had been wrung out, exhausted, and ached so fiercely that Axel had taken pity on him and given him the massage of a lifetime.  
  
But Axel’s old—old enough that he never actually tells Roxas when he was born, just that civilizations had risen and fallen since then—and as such, he had a tendency to get bored easily.  
  
So they took cases, like weird supernatural detectives. Roxas got the chance to perform exorcisms and Axel got to head butt vampires. It was dangerous, and often Roxas got slightly hurt on a job, but it worked for them.  
  
The case that they meet Reno on is mostly picked up on a whim. Chances are, it’s just a standard haunting, nothing to freak out about and cross the Atlantic for, but they’d been meaning to go on vacation for awhile. The fact that it just so happens to be in Italy makes it all the more badass.  
  
They take a flight from Sacramento to Seattle, then from Seattle to Amsterdam, and from there they fly directly into Florence. It's a long ass flight, but thankfully their layover time is around 3 hours total, so most of the eighteen hours there, they're in the air. They pass the time with crossword puzzles and making fun of the in-flight movies, sleeping, and joining the mile-high club.  
  
It isn't a bad flight though, with less turbulence than Roxas is used to on planes. He doesn't really mind it, though upon arriving at Peretola, he feels like he's going to drop. The airport itself is about fifteen minutes from the city, so they take a bus, Roxas pretending that he isn't in and out of sleep the entire time while Axel coos next to him and tries to point out landmarks.  
  
By the time they find the hotel Axel’s booked them, Roxas is leaning on him heavily, too tired to even take in how beautiful the river is at sunset.  
  
"That's just sad, Roxas. It's so beautiful here," Axel says as he half-carries Roxas into the hotel lobby, greeting the receptionist with what Roxas guesses is near flawless Italian. The lobby is bright and beautiful, with sunlight streaming in through the windows and black leathers sofas in strategic places along the walls.  
  
"Trust me, darling," Roxas growls. "I know that it's beautiful. I just cannot keep my eyes open any longer. Bed, pronto, or else you will have to carry me off like a virgin bride ready to be deflowered."  
  
Axel laughs at him and palms the key that the lady hands him. She smiles at Roxas as they pass, giving him a cheerful wink. Roxas frowns down at the key that the redhead tosses him. "What kind of name is Hotel River, anyway?" he grouses.  
  
Axel leads the way up a set of stairs, keeping a steadying hand on Roxas's shoulders until they reach the top. "I'd say it's a kind of name that you give a hotel along the Arno River," he grins as they get to their room.  
  
Roxas rolls his eyes and steps through the door after him.  
  
The room is gorgeous—navy blue covers on the bed and some kind of mosaic on the ceiling. There's a door that leads out onto a patio that Roxas would be very interested in any other time. Right now though, he only has eyes for the bed, and drops his luggage at the end, slumping onto it with a sigh.  
  
He thinks that Axel might be chuckling at him again, but he can't be entirely sure because he's asleep before he can comment.  
  
.  
  
He wakes up to sun streaming through the windows and the smell of coffee drifting on the air. The door to the patio is open, and from the bed he can see the heel of someone’s foot. He drifts closer, blinking into the sunlight and slides onto the chair across from Axel.  
  
"Morning, sleeping beauty," Axel smiles, taking a sip from his cup. It's a small cup, but Roxas still steals it away from him, hoping that some coffee might be able to coax him into feeling more like a person. Across from him, Axel winces. "I really don't think you want—"  
  
Roxas sprays coffee across the table. "Eugh, what is this?"  
  
Axel takes the cup back, using a napkin to wipe some of the liquid from the table top. "That, Roxas, is espresso. It's quite different than the shit espresso you get back in the states."  
  
"Our espresso is shit?" Roxas growls.  
  
Axel nods. "I missed the coffee here," he sighs happily, settling back into his seat. He pushes a french press towards Roxas, filled to the brim. "Here," he says. "Try this. It isn't quite so bitter."  
  
When Roxas tries it, he blinks, adds a bit of cream, and then smiles. "Much better."  
  
"I thought you'd appreciate it more," he grins, nudging a plate of croissants, eggs, and slivers of sliced ham towards Roxas. "I saved you some breakfast, too. It's even still hot," he says, waggling his fingers—the tips of which are completely alight.  
  
"Someone might see you," Roxas says mildly, sawing the croissant in half, stacking the eggs and ham between the two halves, and biting into it.  
  
Axel looks around. "Really? Most people are out and about already, at jobs or sight-seeing. You slept pretty late."  
  
Roxas squints at the sun, high enough in the sky that it's at least noon, if not later. He groans. "Why didn't you wake me up?" he whines, finishing his sandwich and darting into the room.  
  
Axel follows him in, protesting that jet lag is kind of a bitch; Roxas hears the door shutting as he squirms into the shower. It's... smaller than most showers in America, which is weird, but he's always been on the small side and luckily isn't too claustrophobic.  
  
He gets through the shower in record time, humming under his breath (Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream—) before he emerges, smelling of hotel soaps and toothpaste.  
  
When he gets out, Axel's sprawled across the mussed sheets, a book in one hand and his glasses sliding down his nose.  
  
Roxas looks at him curiously. "Why do you need glasses, anyway?" he asks, shimmying into a pair of boxers. Axel glances at him, then shrugs. "Just because I'm a demon doesn't mean I can see perfectly," is all he says on the matter.  
  
Feeling bemused, Roxas finishes dressing and is halfway out the door before Axel gets up to follow him.  
  
.  
  
"So, where exactly in the city is this haunting?" he asks when they're in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, walking quickly away from the river. It really is beautiful, he notices. Now that he isn't in danger of passing out, he takes some time to appreciate the sights as they walk past—the shops and houses, the cobblestone streets, even the tourists shuffling around, muttering in a myriad of languages. He watches a little Japanese boy say something to his mother, gesturing to a shop with brightly colored gelato in its window. Roxas smiles.  
  
Finally, Axel comes to a stop. "There," he says, smirking as he points.  
  
.  
  
It takes a long time for them to get to the top. Just because Axel has demonic stamina doesn't mean that Roxas can match it. Before this, he thought he'd been relatively in shape, but as it turns out, outrunning werewolves and zombies were nothing compared to making it up hundreds of steep, winding stairs.  
  
"The fucking Duomo?" he pants for probably the tenth time, hands on his knees, listening to the sounds of other tourists below them, catching up. He wheezes and starts up the stairs again.  
  
Axel grins down at him. "Just be thankful you weren't with me the last time I was here. I didn't realize I was late for my bus until the clocks starting chiming, and had about ten minutes to get down these stairs and halfway across the city."  
  
Roxas gapes at him. "This is the part where I would say that you aren't human, but—"  
  
"I'm not," Axel finishes, throwing another grin over his shoulder.  
  
They're silent for a few flights, just the sounds of Roxas's breathing echoing in the stairwell, before he sighs. "So, we have a potential poltergeist pushing people down the stairs, two deaths and a metric fuck ton of injuries, and too many tourists for some kind of exorcism. How exactly are you planning to do this?" he asks.  
  
Axel starts to answer, but at that moment there's a commotion somewhere above them, and a redhead comes sprinting around the corner, plowing face-first into Axel. They wobble for a moment, and Roxas has a split second to think about trying to catch them before they go tumbling past him in a windmill of pale limbs, red hair, and vehement curses.  
  
By the time Roxas catches up to them, they're both groaning on the stairs, the stranger bleeding from a cut on his temple and Axel with a bruise already blossoming on his cheek. "It's already been taken care of," the stranger is saying, rubbing his knee and wincing.  
  
Axel is grinning at the redhead despite the bruises, and Roxas watches as he throws an arm around the other man. When Axel spots him rounding the corner, his grin widens.  
  
"Roxas, this is Reno. Reno, this is Roxas, my live-in snack."  
  
Roxas thinks about feeling offended about being compared to food, but decides against saying anything. Hell, he is Axel's dinner half the time. Instead, he just rolls his eyes as the stranger—Reno, groans and gets to his feet.  
  
"Pleasure ta meet you," Reno says with a wide grin, offering his hand.  
  
Roxas stares at the red hair, the green-blue eyes, and tattoos and really hopes that he hasn't just met the family.  
  
He still takes his hand though.  
  
.  
  
Reno isn't Axel's brother. In fact, Reno’s completely human, through and through. Roxas has never met another hunter before, but that’s what Axel tells him that Reno is—that he’s one of the best, in fact, and he’s damn fun to have along on a trip to Vegas. Roxas takes it all with a grain of salt, watching as the two catch up, making their way back onto the bustling streets. There’s just something about them, he thinks, dodging to avoid a tourist group that is loudly conversing in German, waving their hands about.  
  
They have lunch at a cute little cafe in the plaza (“Piazza,” Axel corrects) and Roxas watches Axel converse with Reno like they’re best friends. Which hell, they might have been at one point. Regretfully, he doesn’t know a lot about Axel’s past since Axel tends to clam up every time he asks about it.  
  
So he listens to them laugh over their lamb chops, poking idly at his pasta as they talk about things happening in Vegas that should stay in Vegas. They talk about a boy named Shisui and someone named Zack and Roxas tries not to feel like the third wheel.  
  
It’s not that he’s jealous, because he isn’t. Roxas isn’t Axel’s only lover and he’s okay with that, because he is the most important one. He’s the one who knows what Axel really is; the one that gets to see him make faces at mint toothpaste and the one who knows that Axel’s allergic to peanut butter. He goes with Axel on hunts and has saved his life at least three times, not that he’s counting.  
  
So he isn’t jealous.  
  
Not in the least.  
  
.  
  
Okay, maybe he is a little bit jealous, he thinks when they get back to the hotel after a day of trekking about the city. After lunch Reno and Axel had showed him the sites, pointing out things like the Ponte Vecchio and the museum that housed the statue of David. It had been fun, even if Axel had gotten into a mild argument with one of the tour guides they’d passed since apparently ‘she was getting it all wrong.’ They’d gotten dinner at an out of the way restaurant that Reno had suggested and then the other man had paid for them. Like it was some kind of date. Which it definitely wasn’t. All day treks through the city, dinner, and a stroll beneath the slowly blossoming stars didn’t mean it was a date.  
  
He frowns over at the bed that Axel flops onto. Reno’s still glued to Axel’s side like he belongs there and Axel’s putting up with it in an amused, affectionate sort of way that has Roxas gritting his teeth.  
  
If Roxas has learned anything from the day, it’s that the guy is actually really nice. A bit intense at times, but he’s fun—he gets along with Axel like a house on fire and is polite enough to Roxas, asking him about his life, how he likes the city, if he’s enjoying Axel’s awesome cock. Okay, he hadn’t asked that last one, but Roxas would have to be blind to miss how comfortable the two are with each other’s bodies.  
  
And the thing is, Reno’s actually really hot, so it’s hard not to imagine how they looked together. Roxas would ask, but that might be a little bit too weird, so he just stays quiet as they talk.  
  
When they start giggling about past hunts (or maybe past fucks, he doesn’t even know anymore) Roxas lets himself out onto the patio for a much needed breath of fresh air.  
  
Florence is gorgeous at night, possibly more so than it is during the day. He watches the river quietly, letting his mind go quiet. He misses Sora, he thinks. He hasn’t thought about his brother in a few months, but he really does miss him. Maybe he should introduce him to Axel.  
  
He almost doesn’t notice when Reno slips out onto the balcony behind him until he speaks.  
  
“So Roxas, Axel seems to like you,” Reno grins, reclining beside him. His shirt hitches up against with the movement, revealing a smooth sliver of pale skin that has Roxas gnashing his teeth.  
  
Roxas shrugs. “Yeah, he does.” I guess.  
  
Reno frowns and creeps a bit closer. “I mean it, kid. I haven’t seen the guy in a while but he’s... softer now. Not quite so wild as he was before.” Just as quickly the frown is gone and Reno is grinning at him again. “You’ve domesticated a demon, man. That takes some skill.”  
  
Roxas huffs a quiet laugh into the air between them. “I don’t know about that.” He wrings his hands for a minute and when Reno nudges him, continues. “What we have... it’s special to me, but it’s far from whatever you think is going on. He still picks people up from clubs, we still hunt monsters, and he still drags me to parties.”  
  
Reno nudges him again, smiling. Roxas’ heart lurches a little. “Yeah, well, feeding an incubus all by yourself is fucking hard, man.” He winces a little when Roxas smirks at him. “Not that I would know anything about feeding your boyfriend by myself, um.”  
  
Roxas rolls his eyes. “I already know that you two fucked, I’m not blind. And well, Axel’s Axel. I’d be surprised if he met someone who looked just like him and didn’t screw their brains out.”  
  
“Okay, what I’m trying to ask is: who comes with you to buy the groceries?”  
  
Roxas blinks. “Axel.”  
  
“And who sleeps beside you at night, cuddling like a giant teddy bear?”  
  
“...Axel.”  
  
“And who—”  
  
Roxas blushes. “Okay, okay, I get it.”  
  
Reno laughs.  
  
.  
  
**_You have (1) unheard message. First unheard message from THAT ONE KID on October twenty-sixth, 2012 at 8:14pm._**  
  
_*beep*_  
  
Reno, baby! We haven’t heard from you in a few days, so we’re just checking in. You’ve got Itachi rending handkerchiefs over here!  
  
_*thwak*_  
  
Ow! Okay, okay, maybe not that much, but we’re worried about you! If the big bad ghost got you, we are going to be very upset, and we will fucking salt and burn your body and then piss on it.  
  
_*yelp*_  
  
Okay, okay! We wouldn’t do that. But seriously! Call us! Zack’s off on a hunt with Cloud and the creepy boyfriend and me and Itachi are all alone and freaking out about whether or not we should be making funeral arrangements. Seriously though, call us when you get a chance. We all miss you.  
  
_*beep*_  
  
**_End of new messages. To check old messages, press one. To change your personal options, press two. To disconnect, press star._**  
  
.  
  
It’s been years since Reno has seen Axel. After Vegas, he’d seen the guy once, that one time at his, Shisui, and Zack’s apartment. That weekend had been fun, he remembers fondly. Shisui’s little boytoy had been more or less live-in at that point, and had been teaching Zack how to bake pies in the kitchen while Reno played video games with Shisui in the living room, a sleepy incubus pressed to his side. He and Axel had never been an item, but that weekend he’d been reminded why that time in Vegas had been so fucking awesome.  
  
Since then, he hadn’t heard much. A few phone calls here and there, but Axel had gone quiet. Reno had checked the usual circles, but everything pointed to Axel going off the radar. For a while, Reno had thought him dead. Hunters—even hunters who happened to be demons—didn’t just drop off the face of the earth without something bad happening.  
  
Seeing him in Italy was like getting drop-kicked in the face. He looked happy; the hard, glinty look that he had gotten so often on the hunt in Vegas was completely gone, replaced with something soft.  
  
He remembered Axel as a faintly arrogant asshole who gave awesome head and rode cock like a regular cowgirl—a flash of dark horns in bright hair, green eyes in the dark and the smell of smoke in the afterglow. This Axel is different, and Reno is almost positive that it’s because of the surly little blonde kid trailing after them like a lost puppy. His ‘live-in snack’ Axel had called him, but he’s pretty sure that’s not it.  
  
Someone like Reno as a portable meal he could understand—someone who would be up for a fuck when Axel needed the energy, but mostly lived their own life. This kid, Roxas, seems more than that. Way more, if the change in Axel’s demeanor is anything to go by.  
  
So Reno does what any concerned hunter would do in such a situation. He corners the kid outside while Axel’s taking a piss.  
  
.  
  
Okay, so the Roxas kid isn’t all that bad. He’s a pretty cool dude, even if he is a little self-deprecating. Still, Reno likes him. He’s spunky.  
  
Later that night, Reno takes his leave. He and Axel do the bro-hug thing while Roxas watches from the corner, an amused smirk quirking one side of his mouth. He thinks that he’s actually done something good on that front, that maybe the conversation he’d had with Blondie made a couple things click in his head. Either way, he’s a lot less sulky now, so Reno doesn’t feel too weird pressing a sloppy kiss to the side of Axel’s head and sending Blondie a raucous wink, promising that they’ll meet back up in the states in a few days.  
  
By the time he’s back in his own hotel, his brain is churning. Figures. He goes for his mobile, hoping that at least someone will be up back home. Shisui picks up on the third ring.  
  
“Reno!” he greets, sounding far too awake for three in the morning. “You aren’t dead! What is up, man? We miss you here! It doesn’t feel like home unless people are blowing shit up.”  
  
Reno snorts. “And Zack isn’t filling in for me? Shame on him.”  
  
Shisui laughs. In the background Reno can just barely hear Itachi saying something that makes Shisui laugh again. “Itachi says to tell you that while Zack isn’t blowing things up, he’s doing a great job at burning pies.”  
  
“Well at least you two have some form of entertainment,” he chuckles, grinning into the receiver. He misses home so damn much. Italy is damned awesome, but he misses cheeseburgers. “He’s back from his hunt then?” he asks.  
  
There’s a sound that makes Reno think that Shisui might be shifting the phone to his other ear. Stupid kid was probably using his bad ear again. “Yeah, he got back a few days ago. He’s out on a date with Aerith right now or else I’d let you say hi.”  
  
Reno smiles. “Back from one date and off on another, huh?”  
  
“I don’t think you can really call hunting chimeras with Cloud and Seph a date, but hell, who knows.”  
  
“With creepo-boyfriend, that was definitely a date. Dude doesn’t know how to have fun.”  
  
“So, how’s your hunt?” Shisui asks after a moment of quietly bickering with Itachi over something.  
  
Reno sighs. “Hunt went fine. Poltergeist Asshole McTourist has been taken care of, even if it almost sent me down three flights of stairs before it finally poofed into pixie dust.”  
  
There’s a scuffle before Itachi asks, “Are you all right?”  
  
Reno thinks that he just got put on speaker. “I’m fine. A couple bumps and bruises, but I had something soft to break my fall. Do you guys remember Axel?”  
  
“The hot incubus from Vegas who sucks at Call of Duty?” He can almost hear Shisui’s grin.  
  
“Got him in one. Turns out him and his ‘live-in snack’ were here for the same job and just missed the tail-end of it.”  
  
Itachi makes a humming noise and Shisui laughs. “Sucks to be them, man.”  
  
“Eh, I got to catch up, so it wasn’t a complete waste.”  
  
Shisui giggles, outright giggles like a fucking twelve year old. “I’m assuming you two managed to ‘catch up’ in the biblical sense, knowing you two. Boy-toy didn’t mind?”  
  
Reno sighs. “No, actually. I didn’t get anywhere near his dick. I think Blondie and he are a little bit more serious than they let on and call me old-fashioned, but I’m not about to break that up.”  
  
Something hisses on their end and Reno falls silent for a moment, hoping it was Itachi cooking something and not a monster. “Add a little bit more wine to that,” Shisui whispers, voice muffled, before coming back. Cooking, then. “And Reno, I would call you many things, but none of them would be old-fashioned.”  
  
He shrugs before realizing that they can’t see him. “I think the kid is good for him, that’s all. They seem happy. Axel’s a great fuck and an even better guy, he deserves happiness.”  
  
“Yeah, but you totally want his dick, right?”  
  
He rolls his eyes at the same time that Itachi smacks Shisui, judging from the loud yelp in his ear.  
  
“Not the point, Shisui.”  
  
“Okay, but seriously. Dude’s a freaking incubus. Do you really think that they’re in a monogamous relationship?”  
  
Reno hesitates, Roxas’ voice in his ears. He still picks people up from clubs, he’d said. Reno knows better than most people that being a demon’s meal is exhausting, and he’d only had to deal with it for three days. Roxas had said it himself, he wasn’t Axel’s only lover. Still...  
  
“It would be different with me, I think,” he says slowly. “They’re still dancing around each other, it would be different if Ax up and slept with one of his old lovers. He feeds off of strangers, sure, but Roxas wouldn’t see them as a threat to their relationship. You should have seen the kid today! He was jealous, okay? I don’t want to fuck them up.”  
  
Shisui sighs. “You should be talking to Zack about this, seriously.” He’s quiet for a moment and Reno starts drumming his fingers against the bedside table. “Being in love with more than one person doesn’t make that love any less, man,” Shisui finally says quietly.  
  
“You think I don’t know that?” he bites out, rubbing his forehead. “And we’re not talking about love here, Shisui. I’ve met the guy in person two fucking times, okay? We’re talking about getting laid.”  
  
The line is quiet again before Shisui quietly asks, “You sure about that?”  
  
.  
  
The flight back stateside sucks. He’s stuck next to a mother with a crying infant, and though the lady’s really nice about it, apologizing until she’s red-faced with embarrassment, it still gives him a headache.  
  
When he gets back, Zack’s waiting at the airport, a smile on his face with Aerith smiling next to him. He goes to her first, returning her smile and wrapping her up in a big hug. She’s a cool lady, Aerith, and her hair smells like flowers—a welcome change from the dubious airport smells. When he pulls away Zack is still grinning at him, arms flung out in expectation. Reno doesn’t disappoint—Zack’s hugs are always the best. Hugging him is like hugging sunshine or something, it just makes you feel great.  
  
“How ya doin’, man? I feel like I haven’t seen ya in years!” Zack grins when he pulls away, tucking his hand into Aerith’s.  
  
“I’ve been gone for a week, yo,” Reno says.  
  
Zack bobs his head. “An’ that was a week too long,” he whispers solemnly.  
  
“Pssh, you just missed having someone else our age in the house.”  
  
Zack grins. “Well, there’s that too. But you know Itachi. He might be the youngest one there, but he acts decades older than the rest of us.”  
  
Reno nods. Seriously, the kid makes all of them look like toddlers. “How’d the hunt go then? You seem to be in one piece, so I’m going to assume it went well?”  
  
Zack snorts. “Seph and Cloud got into a fight over who got to kill it and wound up making out against a wall while I was left to do the dirty work. Fun fact: Chimera blood burns! Who knew?”  
  
“And then everyone had sex,” Aerith pipes in cheerfully, because that’s always how these stories go.  
  
Reno laughs with her. “Okay, okay, I have had enough of airports, man. Can we head home now? Please? I got a date with my bed and I don’t wanna be late.”  
  
.  
  
**_You have (1) unheard message. First unheard message from YOUR FAVORITE DOPPELGANGER on October thirtieth, 2012 at 1:16pm._**  
  
_*beep*_  
  
What is up, my bro-est of bros? We talked about meeting up somewhere so I wanted to figure out where you and Blondie’s base-of-operations is! Me and the guys are still in Colorado, so if you’d rather head over here, be our guest. Just lemme know, man! Call me back when you aren’t too busy fucking the kid’s brain out.  
  
_*beep*_  
  
**_End of new messages. To check old messages, press one. To change your personal options, press two. To disconnect, press star._**  
  
.  
  
If anyone were to ask Axel whether he was satisfied with his life, he’d probably tell them to fuck off.  
  
It’s not that he isn’t satisfied with it, exactly, it’s just that... well, he’s old. Roxas would probably laugh at him about it, but that’s the truth. He may be middle-aged as far as demons go, but he sure fucking feels old. When you remember what France was like in the 1800s, you have damn well earned the fucking right to the term ‘old.’ As far as he’s concerned, he’s earned the right to call himself old-as-balls.  
  
Reno once looked at his horns with wonder and Axel could see the question forming in his little head. He’d never outright said anything, but he practically radiated, ‘how the fuck old are you really?’  
  
But he hadn’t asked, so Axel hadn’t said anything.  
  
The truth of the matter is that he isn’t your standard age-old demon. He hasn’t been around since the dawn of creation, he isn’t on speaking terms with the serpent of Eden, and he sure as fuck is no incubus equivalent of Enkil and Akasha from those stupid vampire books. He’s just Axel—born a long fucking time ago to a relatively high-blooded succubus. As such, he gets a pair of fancy-ass horns, an affinity for fire, weird tattoos on his face and other demons treat him like royalty. That’s it. That’s all there is to say on the matter. Ding-dong, the end, the witch is dead. Draw the fucking curtains and take a goddamned bow.  
  
So sure, he’s satisfied with his life. He’s settled down, gone domestic with a surly little brat of a kid that he’s pretty much been gone on since the moment the kid tried to kick him out of his bed the morning after. Maybe he was even gone before that, when he went looking for a one-night stand/meal in a seedy bar just off campus and found an endearingly drunk asshole that made his heart bleed rainbows even though the sex was pretty spectacularly awful. Considering just how drunk Roxas had been that night, Axel doesn’t hold it against him.  
  
He likes sleeping next to the kid, even if he kicks in his sleep and snores just loud enough to be annoying. Axel likes going grocery shopping with him and bickering about tea vs. coffee in the aisles. He likes trying to teach him how to cook, and ordering take-out whenever he fails.  
  
What Axel doesn’t like is how he’s still managing to have warm and fluffy feelings for Reno when Roxas has some pretty firm stances on almost-monogamous relationships. While the dude doesn’t care if he goes out to feed on a Molly or a Steve-O, he’s pretty damn sure that there’s some unwritten clause in their relationship that sleeping with kind-of-sort-of exes is a no-no.  
  
So by the time they get back to their apartment, he’s feeling kind of shitty. When he gets Reno’s message, he manages to feel even shittier, crawling in bed next to Roxas with a shiver. Ugh, it’s too damn cold to still be October.  
  
When Roxas snuggles closer, he sighs.  
  
He isn’t hungry. At least not like that. Awkward cramped sex in airplane bathrooms certainly wasn’t comfortable, but it got the job done, and he’ll be fucked if he has sex again before he gets some sleep.  
  
He drapes an arm around Roxas’ waist and wonders how Reno and Roxas would look together, Roxas balls-deep in Reno’s ass, smirking as he watched.  
  
Fuck.  
  
.  
  
Breakfast is for sissies, Roxas used to tell him. He’d been in college at the time, so Axel doesn’t know if he’s still under that impression, but either way it never seemed to apply to Axel’s kind of breakfast.  
  
So when he wakes up to his dick in Roxas’ mouth, he just closes his eyes again and slides his hands into Roxas’ hair.  
  
“Reno called earlier,” he remarks later, when Roxas is sliding down onto his cock, lube-slick and still sleepy-eyed.  
  
Roxas raises an eyebrow, rolling his hips experimentally and letting out a breathy groan. “You really wanna be talking about this right now? C’mon, lemme see you,” he purrs.  
  
Axel shudders under him and lets the illusion drop.  
  
The change doesn’t really do anything for him physically. His horns are just bone, they aren’t sensitive—the tattoos are just marks that relate to his blood-rank—and the tail is kind of embarrassing, even if it’s handy in certain situations. So the only emotion he feels when he let’s go of the illusion is relief. After using the same spell for hundreds of years, you get used to it. That doesn’t make it any less sweet to let it go, like flexing muscles that have been in use for too long.  
  
Roxas groans and rocks down onto his cock faster, mouth open, wet and so very pink.  
  
“C’mon Axel, fuck me, dammit,” he growls, and Axel smirks. He loves it when Roxas gets all pushy during sex.  
  
He rolls them carefully, until he’s propped between Roxas’ spread legs, Roxas’ flushed cock trapped between their bodies. Roxas groans, wrapping his legs around Axel’s waist and pushing back onto him impatiently. “God, Axel, I’m serious. Fuck me, jesus fuckin—”  
  
Roxas breaks off into another breathy moan when Axel snaps his hips forward.  
  
Morning sex is rarely perfect, but this time it’s pretty nice. By the time they’re cleaning themselves off, Axel is wide awake and pleasantly full, almost overstuffed. The only way the morning could have been better is if Roxas had fucked him instead. He’ll ask him about it later.  
  
“Like I was saying before you decided to fuck my brains out, Reno called earlier, asking to meet up.”  
  
Roxas rolls his eyes and half heartedly smacks at Axel’s chest. “Jeez, way to ruin the afterglow, man. Seriously.”  
  
Axel shrugs. “Not ruinin’ the afterglow, sweetcheeks. I’m just saying. You up for another roadtrip or should he head over here?”  
  
Roxas glares at him. “Where’s he live?”  
  
“Colorado! It might be fine, yeah?”  
  
Roxas props himself up on some pillows, still glaring. “We just got back to California and you want to head over to Colorado in fucking October? What is wrong with you?”  
  
“Hey, Colorado isn’t that north of us!” he protests. He shifts closer to Roxas, latching onto one of his legs when his eyes narrow even further. “We can head over to the Grand Canyon, maybe pick up a hunt along the way and make a roadtrip out of it! It’ll be fun!”

  
.

  
Spoilers. It isn't very fun.


End file.
